1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to specialty tools and, more particularly, to tools used to manually manipulate and position heavy tubular goods or large stratified rolls of material having an open center core.
2. General Background
Hand tools are widely used to multiply the power of a man's strength. Levers are most often used to provide such multiplication. Leverage can be increased again by using pivots. Thus, fulcrums in the form of cant hooks or jack levers have been developed and are used to manually move and position large bodies, such as trees, power poles, etc. Pry or pinch bars are sometimes used to skid or roll very heavy bodies. Hand tools have been used to tighten or loosen caps and every conceivable type of fastener devised by man. However, there does not seem to be anything that combines these principles.
Man often expresses his superior intellect by his ability to make and utilize tools to satisfy a need of his own making. When man finds a task to be inefficient, from an energy standpoint, he will set about trying to correct the problem, especially if the energy source is his own body.
During the course of manufacturing sheet materials, they are, by necessity, stratified onto spindles. Such stratified materials are then removed from the spindles leaving a hollow axial core. Such materials include paper, cloth, plastics, carpeting, foam and ceramic sheets. Other products too are often stratified onto reels, for example wire, rope, and rubber belting etc.
Products manufactured in the above manner must be moved about within the supplier's manufacturing facility onto commercial transport vehicles, removed from such vehicles and then often moved several times within a manufacturing facility before an end product is finally produced. In many cases mechanized moving equipment is not available or cannot be utilized in tight, confined spaces such as inside vehicle's cargo containers, etc. In such instances sheer manpower must be relied upon to move and position the rolls of stratified materials, some having great bulk and weighing several hundreds of pounds.
In most cases, the object of a hand tool used to move such stratified rolls is to skid, roll or rotate the mass by prying or otherwise torquing. However, no attempt is made to control the mass once it is in motion. Further complications occur when the mass is round, offering no means of attachment for the tool or the tool itself may cause serious damage to the material being moved.
The use of air or hydraulic tools are employed in many cases to handle such goods. However, such tools are expensive, subject to frequent failure, awkward to use, take considerably more time to use, and are seldom available when and where they are needed.